Samuel Z. Arkoff, a maverick Hollywood producer who churned out more than
500 low-budget — and often hugely profitable — cult movies, died of
natural causes Sunday, his son Louis said. He was 83.
Arkoff, who said movies were no good unless they titillated audiences,
tapped into the youth culture long before the major studios took notice of
the lucrative demographic.

The stout, cigar-smoking producer, an Iowa farm boy who graduated from law
school in Los Angeles, was a businessman first. The word “art” never
crossed his lips, trade paper Daily Variety said.

“Thou shalt not put too much money into one picture,” ran one of Arkoff’s
many mottoes. “And with the money you do spend, put it on the screen.
Don’t waste it on the egos of actors or nonsense that might appeal to
highbrow critics.”

With the late Jim Nicholson, Arkoff co-founded American International
Pictures in 1954 and hit pay dirt that year by distributing “The Fast and
the Furious,” a gritty action film directed by future B-movie king Roger
Corman. The $60,000 film grossed $250,000.

“I Was a Teen-Age Werewolf,” made in 1957 and starring Michael Landon,
cost $100,000 and was shot in six days. It grossed $2 million. “The
Amityville Horror,” a haunted-house thriller starring James Brolin and
Margot Kidder, grossed $65 million domestically in 1979, making it the
biggest independent film until “Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles” 10 years
later.

In 1979, AIP also picked up the North American distribution rights to “Mad
Max” after the major studios passed on the Mel Gibson breakthrough
picture.

Horror was a mainstay of AIP films, but the company was quick to
capitalize on other genres, such as gangster films (“Machine Gun Kelly,”
“Dillinger”), blaxploitation (“Blacula,” “Black Caesar”) and drug culture
sagas (“Wild Angels,” “Wild in the Streets”).

“I think my dad was one of the first mavericks,” Louis Arkoff told
Reuters. “A movie was never a good movie unless it contained two thrills a
reel. He always said people go to the movies to be entertained and to be
titillated.”

One Comment

TomWApril 18, 2005 @ 9:15 pm

Sam had the right idea
Hi, Everyone,

I like the way Sam Arkoff just made movies. He did not wait for the perfect script or actor. He did not worry about whether Jennifer and Brad would be on the cover of People. He made a movie with a great title and put it out.

If he had been presented with the screenplay for American Idol he would have changed the title to Teenage Blood Stage and gotten a lead from whomever had just sent a picture and resume and had a nice face.